Ole C. Johnson

Ole C. Johnson (23 February 1838-4 November 1886) was a US Army Lieutenant-Colonel who served in the Union 15th Wisconsin Infantry during the American Civil War.

Biography
Ole Johnson was born in Telemark, Norway in 1838, and his family emigrated to the United States in 1844, settling in Whitewater, Walworth County, Wisconsin and then in Koshkonong in 1852. Johnson became a schoolteacher in Stoughton, and he joined the US Army's "Scandinavian Regiment" when the American Civil War broke out. He was promoted to Major after the Battle of Perryville and became a Lieutenant-Colonel in March 1863, and he was captured at the Battle of Chickamauga, where the regiment suffered 63% losses, including its commander Hans Christian Heg. Johnson was imprisoned for eight months, and he wrote letters to his family with invisible ink and in Norwegian so the guards couldn't read them. While being transported between prisons, he escaped and returned to lead his regiment, serving until the end of the war. After the war, he moved to Beloit, Rock County and became Mayor of Beloit as a Republican. He died in 1886.